Charges of Trump Administration Interference

The office of Brazil’s prosecutor general had charged Eduardo Bolsonaro – who lives in the U.S., with courting interference from the Trump administration to help Jair Bolsonaro’s case, by imposing sanctions on the court’s justices and tariffs on Brazilian goods.

His father, the former far-right president, is serving 27 years in prison for plotting a coup in 2022 after losing the elections to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Move to the United States

The younger Bolsonaro, a former lawmaker, moved to the United States in 2025, months before the trial that convicted his father of plotting a coup.

In the U.S., he has been active in building support, especially from the Trump administration, for his father, though Eduardo Bolsonaro said in a statement after Tuesday’s conviction that he had not been properly notified about the court’s legal process.

He had previously told Reuters that his work in the U.S. was not aimed at getting his father acquitted by Brazilian courts, but at forcing the Brazilian supreme court to punish officials who, according to the son, were not complying with Brazil’s constitution.

Asset Freeze and Health Issues

In July last year, a Brazilian supreme court judge ordered that the bank accounts and assets of Eduardo Bolsonaro be frozen over allegations that money being sent to him by his father was bankrolling his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to help Bolsonaro avoid punishment for the alleged coup attempt after the 2022 election.

Bolsonaro served one term as president from 2019.

In March, the former president was allowed to temporarily be placed under house arrest for three months due to ill health after being diagnosed with pneumonia and treated in an intensive care unit.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers argued that his health problems, many of which stem from a knife attack in 2018, warranted him being granted house arrest for humanitarian reasons.